A/74/160 from many of the requirements, restrictions and subjective elements contained in earlier documents: (a) Firstly, the very beginning of the provision outlines the context in which a minority is to be defined by indicating “in those States in which … minorities exist …”; (b) Secondly, it clarifies that not “all” minorities are envisaged by this provision, only linguistic, religious or ethnic minorities. It therefore moves away from earlier language which at times referred to racial or national minorities, among others; (c) Thirdly, it discards entirely more subjective requirements which appeared in earlier proposals, including the need to be deserving of minority rights, such as by being “loyal”, “non-dominant”, “non-indigenous” or “desiring of maintaining” their identities. None of these are retained in the wording of this legally binding provision; (d) Fourthly, it refers to individuals (“persons”) rather than to groups; (e) Finally, it also seems to intentionally omit other restrictive suggestions, including the need to be either a national or a permanent resident of the country involved, a traditional minority or someone with some kind of long presence within the State. This last aspect is, as many have pointed out, fairly obvious, since the wording of the provision, in its plain meaning, is as should occur under article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties with the use of the words “all persons … with the other members of their group”, rather than the terms “citizens” or “nationals”, which appear in treaties intended to restrict the rights involved to these latter categories of individuals. 45. The central point to retain from the above is that, when considered in its historical context, the term minority, as defined by the final wording adopted in article 27, is expansive, in the sense that it discards all other previously proposed restrictions on those who could exercise the rights, except for omitting the category of “national minority”. The above is a textual reading of the legal provision, so it may be useful to point out that the meaning described above is neither ambiguous nor obscure, nor does it lead to a result which is manifestly absurd or unreasonable. 14 It is at the same time clear and expansive: the provision guarantees certain rights to all those in a State who are members of a linguistic, religious or ethnic minority, with no other requirement or precondition, in international law based on “the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose”. It is noteworthy how the normal meaning of the terms involved diverge from what was suggested in the proposals of both Mr. Capotorti and Mr. Deschênes when in 1976 and 1985 they were mandated to clarify the content of article 27 of the Covenant or the definition of a minority. Later developments, and in particular the interpretation of the concept of a minority by the Human Rights Committee itself, as the expert treaty body mandated by the Human Rights Council with the application of article 27, appear to confirm this understanding as to who is a minority. 6. Jurisprudence of the Human Rights Council and its approach to article 27 and the concept of a minority 46. One important development since the attempts from the 1970s to clarify who is a minority has been the jurisprudence of the Human Rights Committee itself, since in a sense it should be the body with ultimate responsibility for clarifying the content and concepts in article 27. Almost 40 years after its first adoption of views on article 27 in 1981, 15 and with its adoption of a general comment on the provision and its __________________ 14 15 19-11967 See Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, art. 32. Communication No. 24/1977, Lovelace v. Canada, Views adopted on 30 July 1981. 15/19